A new green anaconda species was identified in the Amazon, according to a paper published on February 16, in an expedition in the Ecuadorian Amazon during the filming of Will Smith’s “Pole to Pole” series.

Professor Bryan Fry from the University of Queensland led an expedition with Will Smith at the Waorani lands, in Eastern Ecuador, in 2022 to get samples of their anacondas’ populations. The access was one of the handful granted since the tribe’s first contact in 1958.

The discovery took place as part of a broader study Fry and Dutch Professor Freek J. Vonk were carrying out on the impacts oil spills are having in the Yasuni Amazon, in Ecuador. The researchers collected samples from anacondas across nine countries.

The Southern Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus), which lives in the Amazon southern basin that spans from Brazil to Bolivia, Peru and parts of French Guiana, was joined by the recently described new Northern Green Anaconda (Eunectes akayima), identified in the smaller basin that is restricted to Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, Venezuela and parts of French Guiana.

The two species split from each other almost 10 million years ago and have a genetic difference of 5.5%, Fry said.

Footage shared by the researchers showed Vonk swimming next to an estimated 26-foot and over 200 kilos Southern Green Anaconda on a riverbank in Matto Grosso do Sul state, in Brazil, and photographs of the recently identified Northern Green Anaconda.

The research, “Disentangling the Anacondas: Revealing a New Green Species and Rethinking Yellows,” was published at MDPI journal.